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TPMS pretty worthless

iamnid

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Got a flat in my less than two week old R1S. Didn't notice anything as I walked up to the vehicle. Noticed and felt a strange noise as I backed out of my parking spot. Sure enough. One tire completely flat. This is at 5pm. TPMS in the vehicle and the app said pressures are all good, last updated 8am. I was able to fill it with air to get to a tire shop and after driving a mile or so, it tells me that the tire is low. Despite this, the screen and app still tell me the pressures are good as of 8 am.

This is a pretty poor system compared to other cars I've had. In my Tesla, I get a notification on my phone if a tire is suddenly low and it updates pretty much in real time. Having a system that updates 10 minutes into a drive isn't really too useful.

Am I doing something wrong or is this just how it is?
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iamnid

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On the plus side, the compressor that came in the frunk (I didn't pay for the built in) was a trooper and allowed me to drive to America's Tire.
 

Zoidz

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That's how it is. The vehicle has to be driven a bit for the pressure to update. Rivian is not alone, BMW is exactly the same.
 
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iamnid

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I guess... But I'm sitting at the tire shop still, an hour later, and it's still telling me the pressures are good from 8:06 am this morning. I'm trying to imagine a situation where it would warn me about something I didn't already know about when it takes so long to update.
 

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Zoidz

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I guess... But I'm sitting at the tire shop still, an hour later, and it's still telling me the pressures are good from 8:06 am this morning. I'm trying to imagine a situation where it would warn me about something I didn't already know about when it takes so long to update.
If you are driving it will update in almost real time after a bit of an initial delay. I've watched it many times after airing down and up when off-roading. I've also watched the pressure go up over a few minutes as the tires heat up from use on a hot day.
 
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iamnid

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Ok. I guess I just had bad luck in that it went flat after I parked and didn't drive enough to get the tpms to wake up.
 

beatle

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Strange, my old Ridgelines both had unsophisticated TPMS that would warn me almost immediately that a tire was low. It might have been as soon as I started them, but I knew the warning light would turn on before I went 100 yards. I didn't know the pressure, but I knew which tire it was.

Is this a power saving feature of the BLE sensors or something?
 
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iamnid

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Tire came off the rim, got patched, back on the rim and I was about 2 blocks from my house before it finally updated the tire pressures. THEN, from that point it seemed to be real time until I home home. It sure seems to take a LONG time to wake back up after parking. Would be good for a leak that develops on a long drive but not much else.
 

VSG

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For me, it takes less than 0.5 miles traveling at ~30mph for the sensors to start reporting. They kick in at a very predictable location on my daily drive.
 

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HaveBlue

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I think they are centrifugal to save power when not driving. This would be why there can be a reading delay.
 

godfodder0901

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Strange, my old Ridgelines both had unsophisticated TPMS that would warn me almost immediately that a tire was low. It might have been as soon as I started them, but I knew the warning light would turn on before I went 100 yards. I didn't know the pressure, but I knew which tire it was.

Is this a power saving feature of the BLE sensors or something?
There are two main systems for TPMS.

One style, like Rivian, use pressure transducers to defect the pressure and transmit this data to the vehicle. They have battery saving features where they shut down while not in use, and have a delay before they wake up. This type of system will usually display the individual tire pressures.

The other, like your Hondas and my Toyota, use a difference in wheel speed to detect if a tire is flat. It requires no wake up (but the wheels would need to be rolling) since they use the wheel speed sensor to detect speed differences due to change in effective O.D. of the affected tire. This type of system usually only shows a TPMS warning light, and not individual tire pressures.
 

Budman

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I recently got a Gen2 after trading in
a Gen1. The Gen2 pressure updating does seem to take a lot longer after a wake up.
 

usofrob

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Yeah, it seems to take like 10 minutes of driving before it updates the first time. That seems like a safety issue for tires that deflate while parked. My Model 3 updates within like a minute, which makes sense. I can't tell how often it updates after the first update, because it doesn't give a time stamp if it's been updated recently. It's possible it's always once every 10 minutes.

It seems like it'd be nice if you could get a different TPMS sensor in the wheel that's still compatible with the Rivian sensors that updates once a minute or so like Tesla's sensors.

By the way, I have a Gen2.
 

godfodder0901

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Yeah, it seems to take like 10 minutes of driving before it updates the first time. That seems like a safety issue for tires that deflate while parked. My Model 3 updates within like a minute, which makes sense. I can't tell how often it updates after the first update, because it doesn't give a time stamp if it's been updated recently. It's possible it's always once every 10 minutes.

It seems like it'd be nice if you could get a different TPMS sensor in the wheel that's still compatible with the Rivian sensors that updates once a minute or so like Tesla's sensors.

By the way, I have a Gen2.
You can tell if the tires deflate while parked by using your eyes when you inspect the vehicle. The safety issue isn't that it takes a few minutes for the TPMS to wake up, it's your failure to properly inspect the machine you are about to operate.

And the Rivian TPMS will update in near real time once it wakes up.
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